I know some guys in our family exactly like your DH. Not overweight, super hard workers, super sweet tooth. And not into learning a new way to eat, or the why - just want to eat something that won't make them sick. So you have my sympathies if nothing else!

And it makes him sound like a stupid baby, but he actually feels that the effort he goes through and the stress it generates should entitle him to decompress any way he feels like doing it as long as it doesn't involve alcohol/drug abuse or strange women. ;-)

I'm laughing. So familiar, bless their hearts.

Well, he's on board after all. His bg was down 39 pts. this morning - from 350 to 311. Bad numbers, to be sure but at least it was better. He called me to say he was headed to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and we agreed he needed to get fajitas. He had already decided that. After lunch he called me and the only bad part of the lunch was the refried beans. He was even disappointed to hear they likely hadn't used lard to make them. I didn't know he had even absorbed that lard was a superior fat. I was proud of him.
So, he was engaging in accountability and we were in agreement on how to avoid a poor lunch choice.

New meter reading: he got home at about 9:00 and I took the reading right before supper, at about 9:45. I made sure he didn't have any kind of snack. Anyway, would y'all believe he was down to 180!! I'm so happy. He wasn't impressed, because it's still high, but I'll take an improvement of 131 points any day. His lunch was described up above but I don't know yet whether he had a tortilla or whether he had any chips. He tried to say the lower number was because I starved him. Ha! Oh, dinner tonight was chicken thigh w/turmeric, and canned spinach mixed with scrambled egg. Yuck! I didn't mix any egg into mine. He loves that but I don't.

If my DH says he has been at a Mexican Restaurant I know what's there.
Chips, rice and tortillas as well as beans & rice. It's a carbathon...
The only way not to eat all that stuff is to order the fajitas with onions and bell pepper without the rice and beans on the plate and tell them not to put the tortilla chips or tortillas on the table.
He can also have Guacamole.

You should let your DH read this thread so he can read what will happen as others have described.

Well, he came down 139 points. I know he needs to come down some more but that is over night.

Ann, I'm trying to be helpful.

You know he can have snacks, myself and another gave you a list.

When my DH started this I filled his plate up with food at night so he didn't feel starved.

He is going to need a lot of good fresh food to keep this going.

Califlower smothered with butter and cheese..baked

Fresh green beans cooked in butter

Broccoli cooked in butter and smothered in chedder cheese

A bag of fresh spinach flashfried in butter-3minutes

a ribeye

1/2 a chicken baked

3-4 pork chops dipped in mayo, rolled in pork rinds, baked in the oven

If he is a tall man, he needs a lot more food than you or I.

I fill the plate to make-up for the lost carbs.

Great improvement! Keep up the good work!

Congratulations on that huge drop - it sounds as if you've got his attention on the importance of bringing his blood sugar down.

It would be great if he could take his lunch, but as long as he can stick with fajitas and guacamole he can do OK at a Mexican restaurant. The only thing that concerns me about Mexican restaurants is that some (many?) will add sugar to fajitas to increase the browning. I can detect the sugar now that I eat so little but for someone still addicted, they might not.

I do think that not letting him get too hungry is the key to getting him to keep his carbs low. Did he experience feelings of hypoglycemia with that huge drop? They are usually triggered by a large relative drop, though blood sugar may still be higher than normal/desireable.

The fact that that your blood sugar is lower after a meal may be a symptom of dawn phenomeno. It could also be a symptom of insulin resistance: your body may be overcompensating for the few carbs you eat, driving blood sugar way down. It will then compensate by secreating glycogen to raise it to more normal levels, or even higher than normal levels. You might try taking additional blood readings for a few days to see what is happening 30 min after eating, 60, 90, 2 hrs, 3 hrs, 4 hrs to better understand your body's response to carbs. It can be highly variable from person to person.

This is great, Ann, and a reading of 180 pre meal is an improvement.

It is important though to compare like with like, so get a fbg every morning which will give a great indication of progress.

Also a very important reading is post meal and these should be done 1 hour and 2 hour if possible to see how his bg is responding to food intake and then repeat regularly as this is also a good indication of progress.

When was the last time he had his bg tested by a doctor and do you remember what it was?

It's really positive that your husband is working with you to deal with this.

It's okay, I knew you were helping. I also knew we weren't out of the woods. His pp reading was up, even though he only had about 12g. at that meal. 12g. is likely too much. Maybe even 10 is. I'm hoping he gets so that he will bring his lunches. Maybe if he eats a meal from home, he can just go for a drive when he needs a break. The problem with that is that the drive might present challenges of the snacking variety. He used to have very little appetite at meal times. I think that was due to the snacking he was doing at that time. He was pretty hungry last night. His supper needed to be more. He's not tall but he does get pretty hungry.
After supper, he kept wanting something else to eat. He wound up with maybe four oz. of cream cheese, straight. Not ideal, I know, and I think it was the reason his reading was significantly higher this morning than when he first came home last night. Still, it's better than yesterday's fasting no. from first thing in the morning. He felt very shaky and hungry. He was running late so he asked for a smoothie. It was two eggs, a couple of oz. hwc, an oz. of plain yogurt, his liquid multi-vitamin, and some vanilla sf Da Vinci's, topped off with water to fill the cup and a spoon of chunky PB on the side. All in all, about seven g./carb. He has low carb snacks at work.
It's all a learning curve and he is coming down, but not without some bounces. If he were still at his old job, I would go bring him a good lunch but he is at a newer, further away store, now.
Oh, and he should also be going back to lifting weights pretty soon. I'm expecting that to help significantly.

I was actually surprised that he got hungry after eating at a Mexican restaurant. He must have had a tortilla. I know he was hungry but I don't think he had shakes or any of the more severe hypoglycemic symptoms. I wondered if you would still get that, even if you were technically high. Judging by your comment, I guess it's yes.

As for my numbers, I can take more frequent readings. So far, I'm going up mostly about five to ten points at one hour and then at two hours, I'm still roughly two to three points over the fasting number. I've only been really on track for a week as of yesterday and I only started checking sugar for about four days.

I didn't realize you were testing at 1 hr and 2. If you are barely going up at 1 hr you may be just fine. You might try 30 minutes but if there is nothing dramatic there, it sound like you have a normal insulin response, which would be great! In that case you may find your FBG gradually goes down as you continue to eat LC.

All the best to you and your husband. It will be so much better for both of you if you can do it together.

Macadamia nuts are a great low carb snack if your husband could eat them.

He does like those. I'll add them to the rotation. Tomorrow, he's taking a mini-lunch of egg salad with a lot of tuna mixed in and will dip them with pork rinds.

I was so proud of him today. He passed on the beans that were brought in as sides for the company lunch. He just stuck with the chicken. I don't know the pattern of when they do this. It may be just when one of the bosses feels like it. Then, a coworker sneaked a serving of chocolate chip cookie dough from the lady who bakes them for the service customers in waiting. He brought it to Steve in a little baking cup. He set it aside as if he was going to eat it later and when the guy left, he THREW IT AWAY. I can't believe he was so motivated. He used to buy it by the package and just keep it in the freezer to snack on. So, I do believe he is committed. We may just turn this around yet.